For well over three centuries, African-Americans have fought for equal access to the benefits of American society, with education often at the heart of that struggle. The civil rights victories of the past three decades have opened the doors to both public and private schooIs; however, according to educators Joan Davis Ratteray and Mwalimu Shujaa, African Americans are finding that even with the right of access protected, the dream of quality education remains largely unfulfilled (p. 185).
This dream quest has led over a quarter million black families to enroll their children in private schools. The majoritysome 200,000attend Catholic schools, with the rest distributed among other parochial schools, black alternative schools, racially mixed alternative schools, and the elite private (and predominantly white) institutions referred to as independent schools. In the wake of this phenomenon, parents and educators are questioning which of these schools are successfully educating black children, why, and at... (preview truncated at 150 words.)

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